Kamala Harris team reports US$540 million haul, outpacing Donald Trump in donations

In the just-more-than a month since US Vice-President Kamala Harris stepped into the political limelight her campaign for the White House has raised a historic US$540 million.

According to the Harris Walz campaign, that sizeable amount is “a record for any campaign in history”.

“Not only are our volunteers doing the work, but this week we saw unprecedented grass roots donations. Just before Vice-President Harris’ acceptance speech Thursday night, we officially crossed the US$500 million mark. Immediately after her speech, we saw our best fundraising hour since launch day,” the campaign said in a Sunday morning memo.

According to the Harris camp, a third of the donations made to the campaign are from first-time political donors, most of whom are women.

“Almost one-fifth of those first-time contributors were young voters and two-thirds of which were women – both of which are poised to be deciding constituencies in November,” the campaign said. “Teachers and nurses also continue to be among the most common donor occupations.”

The campaign used the convention, they say, to launch a massive organising effort. Volunteers agreed to staff more than 200,000 shifts in the coming weeks aimed at mobilising voters, they said, and that’s after volunteers completed 10,000 shifts in the days leading up to the Democratic National Convention and contacted more than one million voters.